


21st Century Cure

by ivnwrites



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Repo! The Genetic Opera Fusion, Drug Dealing, Identity Issues, M/M, Minor Medical Procedures, Minor Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2019-11-16
Packaged: 2021-02-07 08:25:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 9,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21454990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivnwrites/pseuds/ivnwrites
Summary: Learning to trust a stranger you regularly meet at an ungodly hour of the morning is never easy. Things become even harder when one of you deals a highly addictive opioid and the other is a legally sanctioned corporate murderer.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 7
Kudos: 55
Collections: MHBB2019





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Amazing art by Hannibalisanass who is on twitter 
> 
> Written for the murder husbands big bang 2019

  
The last of the drifters peeled off as they usually did near two in the morning, leaving Will alone in the light but steady rain. Well, not quite alone. There was still the man across the street

He’d been lurking in the opening of an alleyway for at least the past hour just watching Will from a distance without approaching. He didn’t look like one of the spooks GeneCo sent every once in a while to scare dealers off the street, but he didn’t look like Will’s normal clientele either. The man wore a long black raincoat over dark grey jeans and a pair of battered combat boots. The heavy duty black dust mask covering his mouth and nose showed he cared more about protecting his identity than one of the strung out junkies that were usually the only ones out at this hour. 

Will strode across the wet pavement to stand just out of the man’s reach, arms folded over his chest with a half smirk. “Can I help you, or were you planning to just stare at me all night?” There was a knife hidden in the sleeve of his coat as a precaution, though it certainly wasn’t the only one on his person, and Will let his fingers slide to rest on the handle.

The man cocked his head and shifted out of his stance leaning against the wall. If it weren’t for the mask, Will would say he was amused by the confrontation. “How much for a single vial?”

“900.” He waited for the man to turn and leave the way everyone before him had at the price.

Instead, the man nodded and reached into a pocket of his coat to pull out a credit chip, holding it in an open palm so Will could see the 1000 glowing on the value display. The man’s hands looked clean, his nails short but neat, fingers lacking any obvious signs of being broken, the skin smooth and well cared for. It eliminated some of the possibilities Will had in mind for the reason behind the man’s cash, but still didn’t give him any real clues. “And how much for your silence?”

“That’s complementary.”

There was something like a smile around the man’s eyes above the mask. “Very well then.” The man kept his hand extended as Will retrieved a vial from a pocket sewn beneath his lapel, taking a step forward to align their palms. He caught the man’s eyes and let the vial fall, snagging the credit chip with his fingertips before he backed away.

The man turned to leave, and iIn the sudden emptiness it struck Will just how bizarre the encounter had been. He took a breath and called out. “Is that all?”

The man looked back and raised an eyebrow. “Do you need anything else?”

“I suppose not.”


	2. Chapter 2

Two months later, the dealer pulled his hand away with a flick, holding the vial up and out of Hannibal’s reach a moment before they made their usual exchange. “Come get coffee with me.” 

A small amused scoff escaped Hannibal before he could stop it. “It’s…” He checked his watch. “Almost a quarter past two in the morning. Why do you want to get coffee?” He pulled back and folded his arms across his chest. The two of them had barely exchanged more than a dozen words beyond their first interaction; Hannibal appeared in the alley at the edge of the light spilling from the main street, the other man approached him - smart enough to still be cautious, they made their exchange and went their separate ways without turning back. He’d expected it to continue that way indefinitely, or at least until the dealer disappeared the way they always did.

“This is the fourth time you’ve come to me, and I’m prepared to give you a discount for satisfying some of my curiosity. Also I’m mostly nocturnal, so this is my early afternoon slump.” The answer was given with a half shrug and a cock of the head. “What do you have to lose?”

“Taking my mask off.” While Hannibal didn’t think his face would be immediately identifiable, there was still a chance that the other man could recognize him. It was the reason why he wore the mask every time he went out into the city for these errands, ducking into the cover provided by a copse of trees near his house to pull it on before venturing into the light again.

“I didn’t say you had to get anything, just come with me and answer a few questions.” The man took a step back towards the mouth of the alley, and then another, watching to see if Hannibal would follow. “I promise I won’t ask for any identifying information.” Hannibal shook his head and stepped forward to follow the man at a distance as he trailed through the streets. 

They arrived at a shop that wrapped around the corner of a high rise. It was one of the many buildings that had been constructed on top of an older one, steel reinforcements running down through the antique walls to support the towering structure above as the brick turned into burnished steel. The interior was illuminated by low gold lights, leaving shadowed tables against the dark walls where the few patrons up at the hour hid.

The barista didn’t appear fazed by their appearance when they entered, barely looking up as the two of them walked to a table in a back corner, settling into the dim light cast by the overhead lamp. They were preoccupied for a few minutes typing their orders out on the screen built into the table, Hannibal hiding his payment number before sitting back in his seat. The system wasn’t fully automated yet, a human still mixing the drinks before sending them back to be delivered to the tables. “What would you like to know?”

The dealer mirrored Hannibal’s position but slumped further into the wooden chair, spreading his hands. “Well a name would be a good start.”

“You first. Quid pro quo.”

“Will.”

“Hannibal.”

The dealer - Will - seemed to turn the name over in his brain for a moment before asking his next question. “Do you work for the company?”

“You said you wouldn’t ask for identifying information.”

“Half the people in the city work for GeneCo, so it hardly narrows down the possibilities.”

The table let out a soft chime and the screen slid back under the wood to allow a small platform to raise their drinks level with the center of the table. Hannibal reached out to take his and set the paper cup in front of him. He sighed and decided to throw some measure of caution to the wind, reaching up to unhook the dust mask from his ears.

“Very well then. Yes, I do.” The air in the shop felt cold against his skin after it had spent an hour protected by the thick fabric. A glance up at Will revealed a look of mild surprise painted across his features as Hannibal raised the paper cup to his lips to take an experimental sip of his tea. It seemed that despite his request, he hadn’t actually been expecting to see Hannibal’s face. “Is that what you did before,” He gestured to Will’s jacket. “This?”

“Used to be in pharmacology, so I already knew the product.” Will chuckled, taking a long sip of his coffee with a roll of his shoulder. “Why do you take zydrate - in the broadest strokes?”

“Chronic pain from an injury.”

“Why didn’t the company just fix it? As long as you work there, shouldn’t they offer whatever surgery you need free of cost?” 

“Some things take longer to heal than others.” Hannibal admitted, the words making him aware of the gnarled line of scar tissue running along his back. It would probably be there for the rest of his life no matter how many reduction treatments he went through. “Have you had anything replaced?” The global epidemic of organ failures had ended during the past generation, but by that point enough genetic defects had been passed on to their children that most people would still need at least one transplant over the course of their lives. And then there were the ones who did it just for fun or fashion.

“Left lung, a little over five years ago.” Will tapped the side of his chest and Hannibal followed his fingers. Even though it was impossible to see anything through the material of his shirt Hannibal knew what the thin red scar curving along the midline of the ribs looked like. “And you?”

“A few things, but I’d rather not go into detail.”

“Alright.”

They continued back and forth with the same sort inane chatter for a while longer, asking questions that should be too personal for an introductory conversation but that never actually revealed personal information. Medical history, personal lives, oblique questions about past work, the entire time dancing around anything serious until they parted nearly a hour later, making their usual exchange before setting off through the cold streets.


	3. Chapter 3

Their meetings became something of an odd routine. Will met Hannibal in the alley every few weeks, they walked to the coffee shop in near silence, settled into their usual table in the back corner, talked for somewhere close to an hour then make their exchange and separate, consistent enough that he could set a calendar by it. He was surprised then, when Hannibal showed up only a week after he had previously, waiting for Will in the early morning.

“Isn't this about a week early?” He called, walking across the street so he could stand in front of Hannibal with an amused smile. The arrival was a surprise but not unwelcome by any means. It was a better alternative to walking home on his own through the night.

“It is." Hannibal admitted, unhooking the dust mask from his ears. "I couldn’t sleep, so I decided to see if you were here.”

Will chuckled. "Seems as good a reason as any." He waited until Hannibal came even with him before turning so they walked out of the alley together.

They ended up sitting at a table near one of the windows to watch the downpour that had started as they'd walked in. The drops that landed on the glass reflected back the streetlights, creating nets of tiny roundels that Will idly traced his fingertips back and forth between, following the paths from one to the other. He glanced away from the window to see Hannibal watching him through the steam rising from their drinks. "Have you ever seen the snow here?"

"Not here." Hannibal answered. The heat from the buildings rising high into the air meant that most snow in the city melted somewhere between the clouds and the ground so it fell the rest of the way as normal rain. You either had to be living outside the main heat sink of the city or in one of the high rises to ever see it. "I grew up in a smaller city where it reached the ground, but since I've been here it's been all rain." He raised an eyebrow at Will. "You?"

"A few years ago I worked with some people who had a lab on the thirtieth floor, so I got to see a bit of it." He turned back to the window. "I've always meant to go on vacation somewhere in the mountains where it looks like all those old movies." Time always just seemed to get away from him, by the time he'd remember his plans, winter would be over or he'd just be too busy. When the reply was met with silence, he looked over to see Hannibal watching him with an expression that he would almost call fondness. "You're staring at me."

"I apologize." Hannibal answered without a hint of remorse, and Will reached for his mug to hide his grin.

They went back to gazing out at the street beyond as the rain ran over the cement, long gusts of wind occasionally causing it to fall sideways and splatter the window. The storm took long enough to calm down that they ended up having to wait past their normal time. The steady rhythm and the low light of the cafe were enough to fill the interior with a sense of lethargy, and Will watched as Hannibal's posture degraded somewhat so he had just begun to slouch in his chair, eyelids hovering halfway over his irises.

It gave Will the chance to do some staring of his own, letting his gaze travel over Hannibal's hair tousled by his hood. down his relaxed expression to where his hands rested loosely on the table. He should probably be flattered by Hannibal's small show of vulnerability, letting his guard partially down in front of Will. No one did that in the city unless they were truly to stupid to live or knew they could protect themselves if needed. Even assuming Hannibal was the latter, he still wasn't anywhere close to figuring out the other man's work even after a few months. All he could puzzle out from their interactions was that Hannibal was probably the type of man who avoided making outright enemies but still slept with more than one locked door between him and the outside world.

When the rain eventually began to taper off to a drizzle, Will stood and walked around the table, his movement pushing Hannibal out of his partial stupor. Will reached out to tap his fingertips against Hannibal's raincoat.

He realized with a start that this was the first time he had intentionally touched Hannibal. They'd been close, but never in physical contact other than the few times their fingertips had brushed when they made their exchange. The other man allowed the touch, and Will let his hand relax so his palm rested securely on Hannibal's shoulder. "The rain's stopping. Can you get home safe on your own, or do you need an escort?" He asked quietly, watching as Hannibal turned to look up at him.

"I'll be alright, the rain will make sure I stay awake. Thank you though." Hannibal reached up to lay his hand over Will's in a gesture that felt strangely intimate despite it's mundane nature. He stood, carefully keeping the hands together. He gave Will's a squeeze as he pulled away, letting their hands slide apart as they walked toward the door.


	4. Chapter 4

“Somebody help me!” The scream tore Will out of his silent contemplation of the bricks paving the roads in the older part of downtown. Brows furrowed, he walked the few yards to the intersection and barely missed being hit by a smaller man running down the road. “He’s coming for me!”

“Who-”

The sound of heavy footfalls made him turn around just in time for a large figure to slam into the side of his body. It knocked Will off balance and his arms flailed wildly, one of them connecting with the figure’s head as he fell to the ground. A series of hollow clicks resounded in the alleyway and Will looked up to see the trailing edge of a black leather coat flapping as its wearer continued down the street at a sprint. Apparently that had been the ‘who.’

He’d seen a few other repo men out that night. The first had been using the touchpads in their gloves to furiously type lines of glowing text into their helmet display and hadn’t spared Will a second glance until they clapped their hands to close the virtual keyboard and stalked away down one of the side streets. The next had been perched at the top of the stairs leading to the courthouse, leaning against one of the columns as they watched the street, helmet turning like an owl’s head to track anyone who walked by.

The bulky coats and insulated packs repo men wore on their backs made it nearly impossible to discern the actual shape of their bodies so an observer couldn’t tell if they were tall or short, muscular or slim, male or female. Add to that the rounded black helmets that obscured their faces, and it became impossible to identify them. In effect, it made them into a mass of identical bodies that seemed to be everywhere at once. Reapers for the 21st century, indeed.

Will froze in his attempt to get up when another scream echoed around the corner, followed by a loud thud and a strangled cough. People could manage to survive having something like an eye or a muscle taken back, but from the cracking sounds that bounced faintly across the alley, Will assumed that wouldn’t be the case tonight. There’d be a cleanup crew there in the next few hours, and by tomorrow morning, most of the evidence would be gone aside from the blood that always managed to become trapped in the seams between the stone walkways.

He probably should have been running. Or at the very least moving somewhere other than where he had landed sprawled in the middle of the road like he’d been hit by a car. One of his palms was scraped open, and he could feel a bruise forming For all the nonsense he heard people spout about fight or flight, Will never heard any of them mention the third option; freeze. Stay in one place, unmoving, listen to someone get murdered a hundred feet away because they had missed a payment and hope that he didn’t somehow end up next on the list.

A gleam in the corner of his eye caught his attention. He turned his head to see a rounded helmet lying on the ground a few yards away from him, a few blurry shapes visible outside from the built in heads-up display. It was the standard model that all the Repo men in the city wore, and looked for all the world, like a severed head watching him, keeping an eye out while it waited for its owner to come back and finish the job.

Will backed himself towards the concrete wall behind him, pulling his knees up to his chest till he was enveloped in the shadows pooling at its base. On some childish level his hope seemed to be that if he made himself small enough, whatever monster was coming back for him would just walk by without noticing the human shape huddled on the sidewalk. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been sitting there when he heard a set of heavy footsteps approached and came to a stop a few yards in front of him.

“Will?”

He looked up in shock at the familiar voice and found himself staring open mouthed at Hannibal towering over him with blood collecting in the creases of his gloves like something out of a nightmare. He’d come to put some measure of trust in Hannibal over the past few months, and for as little sense as it made, Will could feel something like betrayal twist in his gut. So that was the ‘company job’ that gave him all his money.

“My helmet?”

Hannibal’s calm voice didn’t match his macabre appearance, and it took Will a moment longer than it normally would have to understand what he’d been asked. He pointed to where it had fallen across the street, still mutely keeping his back pressed to the wall. 

“You should go home. A large number of payment deadlines just passed, so tonight and tomorrow are busier than usual.” Hannibal ducked his head to pull the helmet back into place and turned to look at Will before tapping his hands together and spreading them to create a control interface. His fingers twitched a few times, and the helmet’s visor turned back to Will with a red square faintly visible in the corner. “The system has you flagged as off limits, but it’s still dangerous.”

He appeared to almost hold out a hand to Will before remembering the blood on them and pulling it back. After a moment Will refused to move, staring up at Hannibal suspiciously until he took a few steps back, eventually retreating till he was all the way across the street. Will eyed him warily, pulling himself up using the wall behind him. He kept a palm pressed to it and backed away, not taking his gaze off Hannibal till he reached the corner. Once the building was between them he turned and broke into a sprint.


	5. Chapter 5

Hannibal had taken up his normal position in the mouth of the alleyway across from Will, but this time the other man only glared at him from his spot in the main street, making no effort to approach him. Fifteen minutes passed, thirty. Eventually Hannibal began to walk towards Will, stopping short a few feet away when the other man yanked a long serrated knife out of his pocket and held it out as a warning.

“Stay away from me.”

Hannibal pulled his mask off and held his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Will, please.” He’d expected their next meeting to be far from amicable, though the knife had been somewhat unexpected. Realistically, neither of them had made any commitment to tell the whole truth to each other, but he supposed a lie of omission was a lie all the same. “I am not a threat to you.”

“Not a threat?” Will scoffed. “You’re a goddamn murderer. The company points you at someone and you just run them down without a second thought.”

There was no real way for Hannibal to deny Will’s accusations without outright lying. Essentially, that was his job description, and any legal or moralistic gymnastics he could do wouldn’t change that. “You’re marked off limits.” He answered instead. “That designation lasts six months at a time, and yours started about five weeks ago, so I’m not a threat to you. You said it yourself, the company points and I go, and they haven’t pointed to you.”

“Why would a transplant surgeon leave a perfectly safe line of work to run around the streets as a corporate murderer?” Will demanded. His expression had shifted, some small amount of fear dissipating, but the anger was still there, still making the tip of the blade shake.

Hannibal opened his lips to answer but paused, eyes sliding over the alley walls around them he contemplated an answer. He hadn’t spent much time truly considering the reason behind his career change. “I suppose it seemed like the better option at the time, perhaps the easier one.” He’d simply been recruited to attend an introductory session on reposessions, and everything had continued from there. Getting his hands both physically and metaphorically dirty had simple felt like a return to what he was already doing. The first eight years of Hannibal’s surgical career had been spent as a transplant surgeon putting organs into recipients. His current job simply reversed the process. He pulled his gaze even with Will’s again. “If I’m honest, I don’t know exactly why at the moment.” 

Will glared for a minute more, emotions seeming to war back and forth behind his eyes. He held the knife steady but made no attempt to move, and the silence stretched out long enough that Hannibal began to consider backing away, running through possible scenarios if Will decided to rush at him. He relaxed somewhat when Will abruptly let his arm drop with a tired exhale.

“That’s a terrible answer.”

“I’ll offer you a better one when I have it.” Hannibal answered, lowering his hands cautiously to his sides. They appeared to reach some sort of agreement following the admission. Will clicked the knife back into the sheath on his thigh and tucked his hands into his pockets. He took a half step forward so they stood only a foot apart, eyes scanning his features intently. Hannibal allowed the examination, waiting until Will appeared to come to a conclusion and nodded to himself.

“Coffee?”

The question was posed in such a nonchalant manner that the sudden shift threw Hannibal for a loop. Now it was his turn to search Will’s features for some hidden meaning behind the carefully neutral expression. The anger from before was gone, replaced by something like acceptance. “You’re not afraid of me?” He asked skeptically.

“Not more than I normally am.” Will answered.

“May I ask why not?”

“I’ve dealt with a few people I suspected were repo men before, and for some reason I’m inclined to trust you.” Will shrugged but chose not to elaborate further. “Besides, now I hold more cards than you do. I know your name, your job. It’s enough to turn you in if I go to the company.”

“If you do, I can just turn on you as well.” Hannibal countered. Will’s tone didn’t make it sound like he was serious, but if Hannibal had to go down, at the very least he wouldn’t do it alone.

“And now you know why I haven’t done it.”

Will turned to leave and began to follow their usual route to the coffee shop, assuming Hannibal would follow. The silence between them wasn’t quite as comfortable as it had been before, but they managed to make the walk side by side without constantly watching the other as a threat. Hannibal instead found himself glancing repeatedly up at the sky and the few tiny stars that were still visible past the glow given off by the buildings. It made him realize how few times he had actually looked up from the streets and walls surrounding him, past the tops of the high rises to the sky that hadn’t changed even as the city did.

Their conversation was stilted but became easier as the minutes passed. By the end, they seemed to be on amicable terms again, but there was something stuck at the back of Hannibal’s mind as he walked away, and he twisted to stare at Will’s retreating back. The drab waterproof fabric offered no hints, so he began to run their conversation over in his mind as his feet found the way back home.

It hit him suddenly and he froze midway up his front steps; how had Will known about Hannibal’s past as a transplant surgeon?


	6. Chapter 6

The sound of wood splintering followed by cluster of voices yelling at the top of their lungs made Will nearly jump out of his skin as he crossed the street towards Hannibal. "Oh shit." A glance in the direction of the sound revealed a figure just coming around the corner, its movements uncontrolled and animalistic. He turned with wide eyes to find that Hannibal had stepped next to him to see what the commotion was and seized him by the arm. "We have to go!"

They turned and began to run down the streets as heavy, uncoordinated footsteps and shouts of 'there!' echoed off the walls behind them. Will pulled Hannibal along when he initially tripped over his feet, rounding a corner onto a painfully well lit boulevard. The voices behind them had grown in number and at the same time became less intelligible as they mixed together into one screaming mass. Will cursed as his head began to swivel back and forth, trying to find a place out of the light.

“Here, hide.” He yanked Hannibal into the vestibule of a nearby apartment building. The inner doors were securely locked, and for a moment Will looked through the outer ones at the hazardous prospect of returning to the street beyond and it's howling gaggle of madmen. Will searched the room frantically before scrambling over to a front corner not visible through the glass doors. He tucked himself against the wall and pulled Hannibal in front of him hissing, “Your coat is darker.”

Hannibal understood and stepped closer, angling so his body blocked Will's almost entirely. “Who are they?” He whispered, bending his head forward so his lips were near Will's ear.

They both flinched at a loud metallic crash as the voices came closer. The only relief was the now confused tone of the exclamations, the word 'where' being heard again and again. “Boosters, they’re hopped up on a street version anizine.” He answered under his breath. Normally the drug was used to wake people up from surgery by counteracting the zydrate already in their system. “If you take it stone cold sober, you supposedly get better vision, enhanced hearing, some say faster reflexes, but it also comes with a bad case of hyper aggression. They usually don’t make it this far into downtown, though.” He'd seen the groups before, usually young men who didn't need any help being violent trying to prove something, but he'd always been able to hide or leave the area before they could see him.

He felt Hannibal edge closer till they were chest to chest, one of his hands coming up to clasp Will's bicep tightly. "What if they find us?" To Will's surprise, he actually sounded slightly afraid. He'd thought that a repo man wouldn't be scared by a bunch of street thugs, but now that he thought about it, they usually fought completely pitched battles. They had weapons, surprise, and protective gear on their side while their victims usually had none. A handful of drugged up maniacs against one were bad odds no matter how well Hannibal could fight.

"Curl into a ball and play dead." Will reached out to return the touch, letting his hand rest on Hannibal's hip. He tried to make his grip reassuring in spite of the way the muscles in his palm spasmed at every noise loud enough to reach them. "It sounds ridiculous, but the drug makes them stupid enough that they usually only go after active targets."

The group continued to come closer, and Will could hear them throwing the objects they could find into doors and walls of the buildings and storefronts nearby. He kept his eyes fixed on the outer doors, gazing past Hannibal's shoulder at the slanted view of the street outside as the first shadows came into view. Something smashed through the outer doors and clattered across the floor, but none of the men seemed to have the mental wherewithal to check inside the building. Will saw one or two faces glance momentarily towards the shattered windows, but their momentum propelled them forward and out of sight in a matter of minutes.

Despite the fact that they would probably have been able to quietly leave the vestibule and make their way to the opposite end of the street, Will waited until he could no longer hear the voiced before he finally let his shoulders relax with a long sigh. "We should be safe." Hannibal's head dropped to his shoulder in reply and Will instinctively brought a hand up to the nape of his neck. "I'm surprised you haven't had to deal with them before."

"They tend to run when they see the suit." He explained. "I've never had to deal with them as a threat."

Will nodded in understanding. He took in a short breath and reached into one of his pockets. He extracted the vial of zydrate and slipped it into a pocket on the front of Hannibal's coat, moving quickly enough that the glow only illuminated them in a short flash of blue before disappearing again. A minute later he felt Hannibal return the gesture, sliding a credit chip into Will's pocket before he pulled away.

"Next week?"

"Next week."


	7. Chapter 7

Hannibal had been settled into the corner of his couch for the past half hour, book open in his lap. The night had been quiet, no calls coming in or any of the myriad other public disturbances that happened with alarming frequency. It was enough to lull him into a sense of ease that was abruptly shattered when his door chimed and he heard a strained voice through the intercom.

“Hannibal?”

He set the book aside and strode to the door, the chime going off another time before he made it to the button that would activate the screen. “Will?” He couldn’t hide the surprise in his voice at the sight of the other man’s face through the viewport, looking like he was as likely to fall into the camera as simply look at it.

“Yeah.” Will answered with an audible sigh of relief.

“What are you doing here?” How had he even known where Hannibal lived?

A pained groan came through the door and Will shifted so that his hip was in view of the camera, revealing a knife handle protruding from the outside of his left thigh. Blood stained the normally greyish fabric of his pants black in the dim light, and Will had a hand pressed above the knife in an automatic response to the pain. “Some asshole tried to mug me. Didn’t hit anything vital but I can’t fix it myself.”

Brows furrowed, Hannibal yanked the door open and caught Will as he stumbled into the house, having to twist out of the way to avoid jostling the wound. He kicked the door closed and pulled Will’s arm around his shoulders, wrapping an arm around his waist so his hip supported Will’s uninjured side. The two of them staggered through the house till they reached a reinforced door built into an alcove.

Hannibal shoved it open to reveal a sterile room with cabinets built into the steel walls and a heavy surgical table in the center, padded restraints hanging loosely at the sides. Single organ retrievals could be done easily enough in the street wherever he found the target, the various parts slotting neatly into the reinforced pack he wore. Harvest repossessions required a more meticulous process, more equipment and time to make sure everything was removed in the proper order. In the end, they were more like disappearances than the straight up brutality that had become the norm, targets being dragged away from the street with almost nothing left behind.

The room was cold enough to keep initial decay at bay, and a refrigerator preserved the organs preserved until a retrieval team could come for them and the body. Every repo man in the city either had a partial operating room built into their house when they received authorization or rented the use of one. There were three others who Hannibal let use the room, able to access it through the back door facing the old cemetery. The rest of the house was always securely locked off, his trust not extending that far.

Will hoisted himself onto the table and lay back, breathing heavy as one of his hands came back to clutch at the knife wound. When he didn’t appear to be any worse, Hannibal left him there as he moved from one cabinet to the other, retrieving what he needed; sutures, packing, scissors, staples. He unlocked the last one with his fingerprint and reached towards the faint blue glow on the middle shelf.

“Wait!” Hannibal froze with his fingers halfway wrapped around a vial of zydrate, the injector hanging loose in his other hand. He turned to see Will had pushed himself up on one elbow, reaching out the hand not holding the knife in place with an expression of panic on his face. “Don’t dose me, please. You have to have something else.”

Hannibal’s brows knitted in confusion. “I believe I have a local anesthetic, but you should know better than anyone that it won’t be as effective.”

Will nodded and let himself fall back prone on the operating table with a grunt of pain. “Just use it. I’ve dealt with worse” He closed his eyes and just listened as Hannibal rifled through the cabinet to find a single glass vial tucked away in the back corner of a shelf. A small spot of dust free space was left when he lifted it, as if to emphasize how long it had been unused.

He returned to the table with the anesthetic and a bottle of iodine in his other hand. “I need you to keep your hands out of my way.” He grabbed the scissors he’d set down on the corner of the table and began to cut through the sturdy cotton of Will’s pant leg, moving inch-by-inch until he reached the fabric already ripped by the knife before skipping around it to cut through the waistband. The fabric fell away to reveal a jagged gash sluggishly leaking blood around the knife. The original wound would have had clean edges, but Will’s trek through the streets had moved it enough to tear the skin.

It must have been excruciating, but Will had still managed to walk the mile and a half to Hannibal’s home presumably from his usual area at the northern edge of downtown. Will’s features were drawn with pain, skin pale and clammy, his hands clenched tightly in the fabric of his shirt. Despite that, he still had impressive control over his breathing. Adrenaline from the attack could probably only account for at most a third of the distance, the rest must have been sheer will power and desperation.

“You’re staring at me.”

Will’s eyes were open now, and Hannibal realized with a start that he’d frozen with his hands hovering idly over the table. “I apologize.” Hannibal replied, turning his attention quickly back to Will’s leg. He splashed the disinfectant onto a cloth before wiping it quickly around and over the wound. The sedative was a somewhat more delicate process. Hannibal booted up a monitor attached to the table to get Will’s weight, having to look up the correct dosage because he no longer remembered it. The needle slid easily enough into the inflamed tissue around the knife, and Hannibal took a step back to let the sedative work, pulling his sweater off and folding it below Will’s head. 

Minutes passed, and he retrieved a pair of gloves before coming even with the edge of the table again. When gently prodding at the skin around the knife and elicited no reaction from Will other than a slight grimace, Hannibal braced his left arm over Will’s knees to keep his legs flat against the table and wrapped his other hand around the handle of the knife. “This is still likely to be quite painful.” Even with the anesthetic, Will’s muscles has clenched around the intrusion.

Even with the warning, Will still screamed when Hannibal yanked the blade out, spasms causing his elbows to slam against the table. That seemed to tip everything over the edge, and he suddenly began to feel the effects of the wound and his long trek. Head spinning, hands shaking where they were clasped over his stomach. A weight draped across his chest and he clutched at the blanket tightly in an effort to subdue his shivering. “I think…” He stuttered. “I think I’m gonna pass out.”

“That’s alright.” Hannibal answered, hands too busy trying to get the flow of blood under control to offer any physical reassurance. “This shouldn’t be difficult to repair.” When he had a moment to glance at Will’s face, he found it slack in unconsciousness, the rest of his muscles gone lax as well.


	8. Chapter 8

The feeling of cold against his back made Will finally drift somewhat into consciousness to find himself propped against the corner or a shower, droplets of water splashing onto him as they bounced off the wall above his chest. He managed to pry his eyes open and saw Hannibal kneeling in front of him to scrub away the blood covering the outside of his leg. The wound itself was sealed under a sheet of plastic placed over the large bandage wrapped around his thigh. The pain had subsided and been replaced by a feeling of numbness that stretched from his knee to waist. An ache below that buzzed at the back of his nerves, but it was low enough to ignore as he pulled his head upright.

Hannibal reached out to brush wet strands of hair out of Will’s face. “Are you back with me now?”

“I think so.”

Will seemed lucid enough that Hannibal decided to try his luck, hoping the residual drugs and shock would make him too drowsy to think of excuses. “How did you know where I live?”

Will let out a sigh and let his head roll back into the corner of the shower. “I still work for the company,” The words made Hannibal freeze in surprise, hands stilling where they hovered near Will’s waist. “about ten percent of the Z dealers in the city do too.” The brief pauses between some words gave the impression that Will chose them carefully, as if he were unsure of his explanation. “So I was just able to check the records to find you. You’re authorized to perform full harvests so I knew you had to have a room.”

“Why would GeneCo encourage the sale of illegal zydrate?”

“It lets them control the black market, make sure no one gets hooked on some other new miracle cure. I go out, keep track of how much I sell for how much, and they adjust accordingly.” A mirthless grin stretched across Will’s face. “I guess I’m a corporate spy but in the criminal underworld rather than another company. The position only lasts two years, I go back to my normal job in the spring.”

The pieces finally began to fall together. Will knowing company policy on injuries, Hannibal’s past as a transplant surgeon, his off limits status in the database - something usually reserved for company employees or those rich enough to afford special treatment, his past in pharmacology, and the dozens of other tiny things that sprang to mind now that Hannibal thought of it.

That left a worrying possibility. Hannibal slid his hand up Will’s arm, letting a thumb hover near his windpipe. It would be easy enough to pass the death off as the result of the mugging. Though he had no real desire to kill Will, if his purchases were known it would be enough to wreck his career and put him permanently on the company’s blacklist. “Do they know about me?”

“No. I don’t report names, only numbers.”

“What about now that you’re here?”

“I came here and not somewhere else, so they’ll know at the very least we’re acquainted. Otherwise I don’t think they’ll look further into it. I keep my head down, so I’m not closely monitored.” He turned away from his examination of the shower’s ceiling tiles to look at Hannibal. “I’m sorry for lying to you.”

“I never planned for you to find out about my profession - close your eyes, please.” Hannibal admitted, turning the shower head to spray over Will’s hair. He’d also never planned to know the name of, much less care at all about the man he purchased the drugs from. “So I suppose turnabout is fair play.”

Will hummed in reply as Hannibal began to skip his hands over Will’s scalp to check for any head injuries, shifting the water away when he found none. Will hissed when the soapy water ran over the scape on his chest. It had stopped bleeding by the time Hannibal had finished with his leg, so he’d decided to simply clean the cut and let it heal on its own. A twitch caught Hannibal’s attention and he saw Will clenching and unclenching his hands experimentally. “You didn’t give me any general anesthetic, right?”

“None. I believe your current grogginess is mostly the result of shock and exhaustion. It should pass somewhat after you’ve had a night’s sleep.” Despite not understanding the request, Hannibal had kept his word, leaving the bottle of anesthetic out on his kitchen counter so he wouldn’t forget it the next day. 

He’d only seen two other people refuse zydrate in his career, one of them due to an allergy and the other for some strange religious reason that he hadn’t attempted to understand. Given his previous - and apparently current - work for the company, the latter didn’t seem to apply to Will, and logically the former would have made him want to stay as far away from the drug as possible. It left Hannibal in the frustrating position of having the only person who could answer his questions fading rapidly in and out of consciousness.

After a few minutes more he shut the water off and shifted to pull Will up, a task not helped by their similar heights and Will’s failing control over his limbs. Hannibal dressed him in a set of borrowed clothes before practically carrying him out to collapse on the couch in the living room, his head coming to rest near the book Hannibal had set aside.

\------

Will came around to the sounds of someone else trying to move about without waking him, quiet swishing when they walked, the soft clink of something being set on a counter in the next room. He blinked sleep out of his eyes and stared sideways at the low table and staircase in his field of view, though it was partially obscured by the greyish blue pillow his cheek pressed against.

The last thing he had a completely clear memory of was almost falling through Hannibal’s front door the instant it opened in front of him, the bright golden light stinging his retinas after walking through the darkened streets. He remembered laying out on a steel table in a cold room - something which sounded disturbingly like a morgue in the light of day - and then things began to go fuzzy. He reached below thin wool blanket thrown over him to run his fingertips experimentally down his leg. They quickly came into contact with a bandage taped to the outside of his thigh, the sink around it slightly warm but free of the tacky blood that had covered it before. It didn’t hurt as much as he thought it should have.

Good morning.” Will turned his gaze to see Hannibal standing at the border of the room, a mug in each hand. He walked to one of the armchairs when Will noticed him and set the cups on the table before settling into the cushion. “I took the liberty of giving you another injection earlier this morning when the pain seemed to be waking you up.” He reached into his pocket to retrieve a small glass vial and placed it next to the mug intended for Will so he could examine the label later.

Will nodded in understanding, using the back of the couch to pull himself into a more upright position so he could face Hannibal. He peered under the blanket to see his thigh wrapped in a thick ring of bandages and surgical tape. “How bad is it?”

“You’ll have a scar, but it should heal cleanly, and you can have that taken care of later.” Hannibal answered, smiling slightly in reaction to Will’s visible relief. “You should be able to walk with a limp, and I have a pair of crutches stored away if you would like.” He pushed one of the mugs further into Will’s reach. “Drink, it’s tea rather than coffee. You’re more than likely to be dehydrated.”

Will picked up the cup and held it between his hands to let the residual warmth soak into his palms, looking at Hannibal over the rim. “Thank you, for everything.” He meant it, voice earnest as he met Hannibal’s eyes. The two of them had managed to get tangled up together over the past few months, but even then, he hadn’t been sure when he knocked that Hannibal would answer.

“You’re welcome.” He watched Hannibal cross his legs and sit back in his chair, head tilted at an inquisitive angle. “Why wouldn’t you let me use zydrate?”

“I’m afraid of getting hooked.”

“And yet you took an assignment selling it illegally.” Hannibal countered. “You’re a hypocrite.”

“I never said I wasn’t.” Will’s gaze dropped back down to his mug, thumbs running restlessly sliding over the off white ceramic. More than simply selling, he’d spent the entirety of his career up to that point working for the company making zydrate and all the addictive drugs that would come after it. It had never been his job to put any real thought into what the aftereffects were. ‘Stop the pain without killing them,’ and everything else was up to someone else. “How much did I tell you last night?” He asked hesitantly.

“You’re part of the company’s network of illegal zydrate dealers. You supplied a few other details, but that was the gist.”

Will let out a long sigh and brought the mug back to his mouth to mumble past the rim, doing his best to ignore Hannibal’s wry smile. “Yeah, that’s the most important part.”

“As I said, given the fact that we both hid our true occupations until we had no other choice, it seems we’re even now.”

They lapsed into silence, seeming to wait for the revelations to settle into place like puzzle pieces rebuilding the air between them into a new shape. Like the first night after he’d found out about Hannibal’s real job, the quiet wasn’t quite hostile, but it could hardly be described as comfortable. Eventually Will’s eyes trailed back up from where they had been idly sliding over the floor to look at Hannibal again. “If I can ask, what sort of injury gets a repo man get hooked on Z?” He could remember Hannibal mentioning it along with having some organs replaced, but Will hadn’t pried further after that first conversation.

“I was shot nearly a year ago just below my left kidney during a reposession. The company replaced the damaged organs and bones, but there were a number of tears in my spinal cord that are more difficult to heal.” As he spoke, Hannibal reached back to place a palm against his back, presumably over the location of the injury. “Right now the damaged portion of my spine is encased in a plastic cast to hold it in place. I receive regular injections of a gel that provides the material for the nerves to grow back together, but in the end it’s still going to take another five months for my body to repair itself.”

“But since you’re an employee, shouldn’t they be providing you with painkillers?”

“They are, but zydrate is a general anesthetic, I take a regular dose and I’m essentially useless for the next few hours.” Will could see the fairly obvious scheme in play if he looked for more than a second; Hannibal needed the painkillers for the heavy physical activity his job required, but the effects made him too drowsy to do it. He was supposed to fall behind on his deliveries and into debt. “I’ve worked out a way to refine it into a local form that numbs the pain without the impairment, but it requires more material than a normal dose.”

“I see.” Will gazed down into his tea, watching the tiny fragments of leaves that had managed to slip through the filter to drift around the bottom. An idea struck him, and he tore his eyes away from the liquid. “Let me take a look at your formula.”

“I’m sorry?” Hannibal cocked his head.

“My entire job revolves around drug development, there’s a chance I can improve it and cut down on the amount of zydrate you need to make the new formula.” It seemed an appropriate way to pay Hannibal back in kind, and on a selfish level, Will missed the work.

“Alright.” Hannibal agreed. “But not today, give your leg a rest for at least a day”

\----

Quickly, Will spending his evenings tinkering in the small section of the study Hannibal had used for distillation morphed into the two of them sitting together for long periods of time talking, finally able to do so honestly without skirting around every other topic.

He was able to limp through the house with the occasional assistance of furniture, but still had to endure Hannibal glaring when he tried to move too fast and risked tearing open the stitches. After the second night, Hannibal had decided to stop helping Will down the stairs to the couch at the end of their talks and simply led him to the bedroom. Will would settle into the unused side of the bed and would usually end up falling asleep before Hannibal turned off his reading light, the arduous recovery sapping his energy.

There never seemed to be a pattern to where and when he woke up. At times it was long after Hannibal had gotten up. From what Will could tell, he seemed to do his best to keep some semblance of a normal schedule, only becoming nocturnal when he needed for a reposession. There had been other mornings when he woke to find Hannibal resting a hand against his arm, eventually becoming more bold till Will opened his eyes to find his head cradled against Hannibal’s shoulder.

He hadn’t reported the injury yet, suspecting that when he did, he’d be pulled back to his old job. Will’s suspicions were confirmed a week later when he finally notified his supervisor and was replied to in a matter of hours with his placement back in the lab. The message brought with it both a feeling of regret and relief. He’d applied for the undercover work as a way to break from his normal days spent in labs testing iteration after iteration, combination after combination of the same chemical looking for the most minute changes in the results. The day to day fell into a routine, but it posed an intellectual challenge that wasn’t matched simply standing in a shadowed alley and typing numbers into a recorder each night. The puzzle became its own form of addiction after a while.

Hannibal noticed Will’s discontent as he climbed into bed, having been kept up filing paperwork. “Did you tell them?”

Will turned to look at him, using a hand to hold the blankets up so they wouldn’t drag against the bandage. He nodded. “This morning. They told me I’ll be going back in a couple of weeks.”

“So we may need to meet at a more conventional time of day rather than two in the morning?”

Will chuckled at the reply, and slid closer, dragging his pillow along to settle into the center of the bed. “I guess so.” He let his eyes flutter closed when Hannibal flicked off the light and moved alongside him, wrapping an arm easily over his waist. There was some reply to his comment, but Will missed it, already letting himself slip away into the feel of warm skin against his cheek.


End file.
